SAGE-GROUSE EFFORTS

Wild Utah Project has been collaborating with our chief partners, USDA Agricultural Research Services and Utah State University, on a long-term large scale research study since 2009. We are investigating the interaction between mechanical sagebrush treatments and the return of cattle grazing. The results of this study fill a significant gap in the sagebrush ecosystem restoration literature and have implications for sage-grouse habitats. The long-term field site is located on Kennecott Utah Copper lands on the west side of the Salt Lake Valley, where a single grazing permittee who grazes most of the east sagebrush-filled bench of the Oquirrh Mountains is a willing partner to a 160 acre, 20+ year grazing study.

Sage Grouse Brood-Rearing habitat assessment protocol

We are just launching a new research effort with our partners at the University of Wyoming to develop a new, rapid field assessment protocol that can tell you if the habitat structure and insect community in an area is suitable for brood rearing sage-grouse. Check back here early in 2018 to learn more as this research progresses!

Wild Utah Project and some of our conservation partners are reviewing the new Sage-Grouse Habitat Assessment Framework (HAF) issued by the federal agencies that manage much of the sage-grouse habitat in the West (chiefly the US Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management). While this method is in some ways a tried and true method for measuring the needs of sage-grouse in terms of habitat structure (using common methods such as the vegetation 'line intercept' method), in other ways we are finding that it sometimes misses the mark (like not requiring that practitioners report the height of grasses protected from grazing under the shrubs separately from the grasses out in the open that are grazed). We are now working on a 'technical note' describing some of the findings regarding the HAF.